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Ethics in permaculture
Updated: 26-Mar-2010
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Simple raised beds can provide enough food for all
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Stuart Merelie, landscaper, ecological researcher and permaculture fanatic, shares his passion for correct and sustainable landscaping in the Algarve and is our garden and landscaping correspondent. This is the 20th part, in a series of 24, exploring permaculture and its importance and uses in today’s world.
Every once in a while, it used to be footballers or rock stars who featured as the bad boys of the news on television.
Now it is daily scandals of politicians and their limitless expenses. I think the adjective is greed, and most of us would do the same given the chance. With greed comes waste and selfishness – the MPs second homes lie empty while first time buyers can’t even get a mortgage. Waste will ultimately destroy this planet.
Permaculture is primarily a tool for designing a low carbon existence and removing even the concept of waste. What can start as a journey towards living a more sustainable life can go much further, transforming our worldview and our behaviour. This is the inspirational nature of permaculture – it is a means of connecting each of us more deeply to nature’s patterns and wisdom, and in turn then applying that to our daily lives.
By slowly and carefully observing what makes natural systems endure, we can mirror them in our own designs. This can be in gardens, farms, your own house, at work, even in cities. Yesterday I was snarled in traffic heading to Faro. The cause was road works, mainly the moving of machines into position. By the simple logic of starting this work AFTER rush hour could have saved more time, more fuel and less stress for all. Simple observation… big saving.
Where permaculture stands out as a design system is in its capacity to integrate the intellect with ethics. It can teach us to think with the heart and respond with the head. The three ethics are:
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Abundance must be shared, not wasted
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Earth care
Like the dust bowls of 1930s Oklahoma to the bleached soils of Spanish olive groves, modern monocropping has the ability to turn once bio diverse fields into desert. The response is to plant a permanent agriculture with different tree crops and other perennials in harmony, leaving the soil untilled to establish its own robust balance. The key to this is the land must be bio diverse and hardy for future generations. Earth care involves many decisions, what clothes we wear, what paint we use, what we drive (or ride!). Although we can’t all build our own compost toilet or grow all our own food, we can make choices about how we consume the planet.
People care
A cornerstone to permaculture is the concept of a permanent culture. How can we progress on this planet if fellow humans are expendable, excluded, uncared for? People care means our basic needs for food, shelter, education, employment and health are met. Not exclusive as an island but inclusive – all members of the community must be included, both home and abroad. At the centre of people care is understanding the power of community. As an individual I may never be able to grow enough food, build enough shelter, fix my ailments, but by developing good networks, I can expand my capacity to live more sustainably. I have a few volunteers who help me at Quinta Stuart, and everyone has given me something valuable, taught me even the smallest trick. On my own, or even with the same group of good friends, I would not achieve the progress I need.
Fair shares
This last ethic encompasses the first two. We only have one earth and we have to share it with all living things and future generations. There is little point designing a sustainable family unit or community, or even nation while others grow weak without clean water or food. The advanced industrial nations use the resources of several earths and leave the poorer nations in poverty. Fair shares is an acknowledgement of this terrible imbalance and a plea to limit the never ending excesses of the industrial leaders. Permaculture fundamentally rejects the industrial growth model of the (so called) advanced nations. At the core of our ethics is to design fairer systems to rebalance the limited resources we have on this planet.
These ethics are the start point for permaculture, but sadly they are not enough on their own. We need governments and politicians to act fairly and honestly to encourage fair shares. Once greed is limited, the waste will reduce and that will be the survival of the planet.
Stuart Merelie is available for design and construction of all types of sustainable landscaping as well as consultations on Permaculture projects. Stuart lives near Estoi on his farm and works from Portimão to Huelva. For enquiries please contact 917814261, or follow his blog at www.quintastuart.blogspot.com To join the permaculture network log on to www.permaculture.org.uk.
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